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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23431135">The White Rose Whiter Blow</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/regshoe/pseuds/regshoe'>regshoe</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Jonathan Strange &amp; Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 10:48:16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>732</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23431135</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/regshoe/pseuds/regshoe</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Before leaving England again, the King stops to pay his respects to one who played a part in the revival of English magic.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The White Rose Whiter Blow</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Thanks to <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/theseatheseatheopensea">theseatheseatheopensea</a> for beta reading!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>An English wood in the middle of February is not the bright, joyous sight that it will be in two or three months' time. This place was no exception to the general rule. Its aspect was altogether cold and grey; the bare branches of the trees twisted up towards a sky as cheerless as the frozen ground beneath. But here and there some signs of life could be discerned, for here towards the end of winter the world was but half-asleep. In the little clearing created by the junction of two rough tracks, a cluster of aconite flowers lifted their golden heads above ruffs of green leaves, looking like fine ladies and gentlemen of the time of Queen Elizabeth; while above them the catkins drooped from the branches of a hazel bush. From time to time the cold silence was broken by the clear voice of a song thrush, repeating each of its phrases several times as though to emphasise a point.</p>
<p>Someone was coming along one of those narrow tracks. It would have been difficult to say where he had come from, for neither of the roads led to anywhere of very great consequence; but this man appeared to be someone of great consequence indeed, for his clothes were richly made and in the latest fashion. Although perhaps he was a little eccentric, for these fine clothes were uniformly black in colour; his hair too was black, and his face very pale, so that altogether he had no more colour than the grey wood around him.</p>
<p>The man strode along the ridges of frozen mud that lined the track, placing his feet in their fine black boots with perfect unconcern, as though he walked along this same route every day. When he reached the crossroads where the aconites grew he paused for a moment, and then he left the track and walked off into the wood. His path appeared to be taken at random, yet it was evident from the confidence with which he strode along it that he knew exactly where he wished to go.</p>
<p>At last he stopped, at a place which was in appearance just like the rest of the wood. A great oak tree reared gnarled branches above his head, the rough latticework of its knobbly twigs standing out against the cold sky. The man regarded it for a moment, and then bent down to the ground. He reached out a hand towards a tiny sapling, perhaps the offspring of the big oak, which pushed up through the leaf litter nearby. Its little branches grew in an odd pattern: it looked almost like a hand...</p>
<p>On such close examination as this man was giving it, the place was not quite like the rest of the wood, after all.</p>
<p>His hand traced more shapes in the tangle of saplings, underwood and ivy that straggled over the woodland floor, as though writing invisible words across the pattern they made as they grew. Here was a young but already vigorous rose-briar, which would surely bear lovely flowers in a few months' time, criss-crossing over itself in a complicated pattern of braids almost like the bones of a rib-cage. Here was a diminutive birch, growing eagerly as birches always do in waste-places, the white and red of its bark standing out against the dark ground, bright animal colours in the grey winter wood.</p>
<p>At last the man knelt back on his feet and regarded the place with a thoughtful expression on his fine features, seeing more than the tangled stems and withered leaves, looking over the ground as though searching for something.</p>
<p>Then he smiled. He lowered himself on his knees to the ground, reached into the frost-rimmed leaf litter and picked something up, then held the thing in his hand to inspect it.</p>
<p>It was a pebble of very curious appearance. Though made of the same unremarkable stone that showed in places through the mud of the roads, and blotched with rough grey-green lichens of ancient appearance, in shape it resembled nothing so much as a kitchen spoon.</p>
<p>The man stood up and placed the odd-looking pebble in a pocket of his black greatcoat. Then, with one last glance over the patch of woodland, he turned and walked off back the way he had come, disappearing between the trees so quickly it was as though he had simply faded away.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>
  <i>They think a murderer's heart would taint<br/>Each simple seed they sow<br/>It is not true! God's kindly earth<br/>Is kindlier than men know,<br/>And the red rose would but blow more red,<br/>The white rose whiter blow.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>Out of his mouth a red, red rose!<br/>Out of his heart a white!<br/>For who can say by what strange way,<br/>Christ brings his will to light...</i>
</p>
<p>—Oscar Wilde, 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol'</p></blockquote></div></div>
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